At the end of the year, here is my round up of some of the best new jazz albums of 2022.
JOHN COLTRANE: A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle (Impulse!)
Once he had recorded his spiritual masterpiece in December 1964, tenor saxophonist John Coltrane rarely played A Love Supreme live: just one recorded performance at the Antibes Jazz Festival in France in July 1965 and then an unrecorded fundraiser in Brooklyn in 1966.
Which makes this previously unknown club set from The Penthouse in Seattle in October 1965 all the more remarkable, for the quartet that first recorded the piece is now augmented by three extras, notably saxophonist Pharoah Sanders. And what a transformation occurs!
The music is as impassioned as ever, wilder and less constrained, the addition of hand percussion loosening up the beat, while Sanders in particular wields the flamethrower. A Love Supreme is always a piece to be marvelled at rather than listened to repeatedly, for it is overpowering in its intensity, but this live version has given it a new and different life altogether. Without a doubt, one of the finest rediscoveries of the past decade.
KIT DOWNES: Vermillion (ECM)
Pianist Kit Downes has been a fixture on the British scene for some years now, but this, his third set for ECM, marks him out as someone rather special, someone worth making a real effort to listen to. Accompanied by Petter Eldh on bass and James Maddren on drums, he presents here a set of ten songs that are utterly unique, each one defined by a sense of pianistic occasion, of poise and inspiration. In Downes’s hands, the songs are both exuberant and restrained, simple in effect but often complex in construction and mood.
While never a showman, tackling Jimi Hendrix’s Castles Made Of Sand as a finale takes some beating! Bass and drums are in strong support throughout, but it is Downes’s perfect touch that appeals the most. Listen hard, for you won’t find a better jazz trio album all year.
AHMAD JAMAL: The Complete 1962 At The Blackhawk (American Jazz Classics)
Pianist Ahmad Jamal’s trio was magic: original sleeve-note writer John Hammond – the man who discovered and promoted Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, among many others – said when this set was first released that Jamal’s was one of “a handful of rhythm sections that have approached perfection.”
The opening medley demonstrates this, combining a subdued modal riff and sudden exuberant chordal flourishes from Jamal. Bassist Israel Crosby keeps the riff going with some added definition while drummer Vernel Fournier metronomically keeps time. It proves that this is a group that can play anything it wants, and play it perfectly.
From then on, each track demonstrates the complete interplay and empathy between the three musicians, Jamal at his best when floating light-touch fingers over the keyboard, often using the highest registers to quietly spell out the theme and turning down the volume to achieve maximum effect.
And every change he makes is echoed by bass and drums, all three totally in step with each other. Following on from the success of live performances at the Pershing Hotel in Chicago and Jamal’s own Alhambra Club in Chicago, this magnificent set completes a fine trilogy of live appearances. What a great reissue.
ETHAN IVERSON: Every Note Is True (Blue Note)
Pianist Ethan Iverson made his name in the Blad Plus Trio but has been flying solo since 2017. His latest set – and his first for Blue Note – finds him paired with the stellar support of Larry Grenadier on bass and Jack DeJohnette on drums.
The music is all his – none of his usual covers of popular songs here – and while as intelligent as any he has previously performed, it seems to my ears to be more subdued than before, more contemplative and restrained. Iverson is a highly thoughtful pianist, careful in what he plays, and when he lays out, which makes you listen hard to everything he says. At 43 minutes, the album hardly outstays its welcome, but is all the more delightful for it.
JOHN SCOFIELD: John Scofield (ECM)
American guitarist John Scofield first came to prominence playing with trumpeter Miles Davis in the 1980s, and has since worked with many fine jazz musicians. His new ECM album is, extraordinarily, his first ever solo outing, in which he indulges his love for the country music and rock ‘n’ roll he grew up with. Hence his heartfelt renditions of Hank Williams’s You Win Again and Buddy Holly’s (and the Rolling Stones’) Not Fade Away, along with a reworking of the traditional song Danny Boy and other favourites.
With just an electric guitar and a loop machine, he plays with a heartfelt simplicity and wonderful openness, swinging easily though each song. I’m not a Scofield fan, but this set is a real and unexpected delight. Enjoy.
TIGRAN HAMASYAN: StandArt (Nonesuch)
After a number of albums featuring his own pieces, Armenian pianist Tigran Hamasyan has now released his first album of American standards, popular songs from the 1920s to the 1950s. The songs are all familiar, but it takes a brave man to attack Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise with such force, and shift time so markedly and amusingly on I Didn’t Know What Time It Was.
Throughout, his piano lines are thoughtful and often unexpected, his approach oblique and sometimes obtuse but never less than relevant. Supported by a trio, he is joined on three tracks by guest stars, most beautifully tenor saxophonist Mark Turner in his most light-voiced manner.
This might be an album full of well-known music, but Hamasyan brings fresh insights to every note he plays, truly adding the Art to the Standards. Another strong album from a pianist increasingly in the limelight.
KEITH JARRETT: Bordeaux Concert (ECM)
In February 2016 pianist Keith Jarrett embarked on what proved to be his final solo tour, playing eight concerts in the United States and then Europe. Other than a single solo appearance in Carnegie Hall early in 2017, he performed no more, for in early 2018 he suffered two strokes that in effect ended his public career.
As with the preceding Budapest and later Munich performances from the same tour, both already released by ECM, the concert from Bordeaux consists of numbered but nameless parts, 13 in this case – gone are the days of long, continuous improvisations – although unlike those two, without the added benefit of a few familiar songs to end proceedings.
This Bordeaux music has its own strikingly distinct character. Some listeners have remarked on its lyrical impulse, its lightness of touch, but to me the main element is the surprising differences in style, moving from the lyrical into an occasional rhythmic choppiness, even turmoil.
Perhaps it is more accurate to note that Jarrett is thinking harder here than usual, not just delivering phrases that he has used before and is familiar with. Part VIII is one of the rare times Jarrett has played a straight piano blues, albeit in a disjoined boogie-woogie style, but he then jumps into the most tender of songs in Part IX, as if to confound our expectations. And then he surprises us again with a high-register fast-step intricate dance in Part X and a slow romantic ballad in Part XI.
This set is indeed the sound of surprise, that after all these years Jarrett can, or rather could, still deliver something new. No doubt further historic sets will appear in the future, but this one is as fine as any of them could be.
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